Dr. Jürgen Walkenhorst

Dr. Jürgen Walkenhorst is managing director of Life Science Nord, the regional industry network for medical technology, biotechnology and pharma for the German states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.

He studied biology/molecular biology in Osnabrück and Aberdeen (UK) and at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. He worked at Genentech, Inc. (USA) and then undertook his PhD-thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. He joined the biopharmaceutical EMBL-spin off Cellzome AG (Heidelberg, now part of GSK) as the first employee where he was instrumental in setting up the company including handling financing rounds of in total 70 m Euro, and was later responsible for IP-issues. After a stint in the patent department of Baxter AG in Vienna, he changed to technology transfer. At Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, Vienna, he was managing life science inventions developed at Austrian universities.

In 2007, he moved to PROvendis, the central technology transfer agency of the universities of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where during most of his time at PROvendis, he served as a head of the Life sciences team. Except for another stay for one and a half years in Vienna, as head of technology transfer at the University of Vienna, he stayed with PROvendis until May 2022. In June 2022 he became the Managing Director of Life Science Nord.

He also holds a Master´s degree in Pharmaceutical Business Development and Licensing from the University of Manchester(UK).